Recovery from Abusive Groups Page 33
Extensive Meditation and Attention Deficiencies
Some ex-cultists from groups that used intense and prolonged chanting and
meditation have a very hard time stopping this practice. It is critical to your
recovery to stop chanting. To heal, you need to actively engage your mind.
Chanting tunes out the mind, but you need to learn to concentrate on thinking.
You can start relearning to concentrate by focusing your attention on what you
are thinking about or by focusing on what someone else is saying. This is called
active listening. You know you are listening and thinking when you have
questions to ask about what's being said.
The following exercise you can try with a friend to help strengthen your
attention and thinking.
Exercise- Active Listening
Try the following: Have your friend start talking about something of interest to
you both, such as dating, set jobs, or ice cream. Have your friend make a few
comments or ask a question. Stop. Ask "how does this relate to me?" Write your
answer down. Have your friend continue and repeat these steps.
After about 5-15 minutes, discuss the answers with your friend. Talk about how
well this exercise worked for you. If it didn't work very well for you, discuss how
to modify the steps.
Do this exercise as often as you're comfortable with it. Probably once a day is
good or more, if you like. You may feel pretty rusty at first, but stick with it.
Unlike meditation which reduces mental activity, you are actively engaged in
listening, assessing, reflecting, evaluating, critiquing, writing, articulating, and
reasoning.
Home from the War
For some ex-cultists, there is from time to time a haunting feeling of having left
behind others in the clutches of the cult. This is particularly true for those who
recruited others. It's very normal to feel guilty about being free while so many
others are in abusive groups and are being recruited daily. As you heal and
learn about how the abusive psychological controls were used on you, the more
anxious you can become for those left behind.
An Analogy
After I'd been out for several months, I had a lot of trouble sleeping. One night I
went downstairs and huddled myself in a blanket in front of the TV. My Dad
came downstairs after awhile and sat next to me. He could tell I was hurting. As
we talked about the people I'd left behind, he made an analogy. He said it was
as if I had been to war and then got to come home. But I had left my buddies in
the trenches knowing the dangers they were facing. I wanted to feel great about
being free, but it hurt to know others were still on the battlefield.
Extensive Meditation and Attention Deficiencies
Some ex-cultists from groups that used intense and prolonged chanting and
meditation have a very hard time stopping this practice. It is critical to your
recovery to stop chanting. To heal, you need to actively engage your mind.
Chanting tunes out the mind, but you need to learn to concentrate on thinking.
You can start relearning to concentrate by focusing your attention on what you
are thinking about or by focusing on what someone else is saying. This is called
active listening. You know you are listening and thinking when you have
questions to ask about what's being said.
The following exercise you can try with a friend to help strengthen your
attention and thinking.
Exercise- Active Listening
Try the following: Have your friend start talking about something of interest to
you both, such as dating, set jobs, or ice cream. Have your friend make a few
comments or ask a question. Stop. Ask "how does this relate to me?" Write your
answer down. Have your friend continue and repeat these steps.
After about 5-15 minutes, discuss the answers with your friend. Talk about how
well this exercise worked for you. If it didn't work very well for you, discuss how
to modify the steps.
Do this exercise as often as you're comfortable with it. Probably once a day is
good or more, if you like. You may feel pretty rusty at first, but stick with it.
Unlike meditation which reduces mental activity, you are actively engaged in
listening, assessing, reflecting, evaluating, critiquing, writing, articulating, and
reasoning.
Home from the War
For some ex-cultists, there is from time to time a haunting feeling of having left
behind others in the clutches of the cult. This is particularly true for those who
recruited others. It's very normal to feel guilty about being free while so many
others are in abusive groups and are being recruited daily. As you heal and
learn about how the abusive psychological controls were used on you, the more
anxious you can become for those left behind.
An Analogy
After I'd been out for several months, I had a lot of trouble sleeping. One night I
went downstairs and huddled myself in a blanket in front of the TV. My Dad
came downstairs after awhile and sat next to me. He could tell I was hurting. As
we talked about the people I'd left behind, he made an analogy. He said it was
as if I had been to war and then got to come home. But I had left my buddies in
the trenches knowing the dangers they were facing. I wanted to feel great about
being free, but it hurt to know others were still on the battlefield.
